'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds

Happy Birthday, Woodstock. Yay, whirled peas.

Here I sit, and none too happy about it by the way, in Charlotte's Douglas International Airport. Which I remember from a long time ago when it was Douglas Regional Airport. I am waiting for a 9:25 PM flight to Dayton, Ohio, which is actually 75 miles from Cincinnati, where I am really going... and should have arrived at already. Weather...always weather! I am going to be one tired puppy when I get to work tomorrow. A tired puppy who is possibly still wearing his travelling clothes. Arrrgh!

Anyway, I have been busting butt trying to get some training written for a custom install in Taiwan. In fact, I was messing with it in the Tampa Airport for almost 2 hours. I assume it is for Taipei, but that's mostly because I don't know of any other cities there. I could possibly end up in the sticks somewhere, and all the money I have been squirreling away for a hot time in the big city may actually end up no place more special than a noodle shop. We'll see. Anyway, I think around about the 2nd week in September I well be headed over there for 2 weeks. Yee-Haw...back in Asia for a while.

I have been drinking tea today, for some unexplainable reason. Hot tea, no less. Something called Rasberry Spark, which tastes like hot Kool-Ade. It is all full of ginko bilboa and ginsing. Not sure what that means, whether it is supposed to make me healthy or horny. Either, I suppose, would be an improvement on the day. Ginko bilboa baggins.

Watched Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino last night. Awesome flick. He makes a good grumpy dude, anyway. Plus he had him a bit of a violent streak. Win-Win.

The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

All of my life I have used lawnmowers. If you live, or have ever lived, in the south you know, this is a true statement. You have a lot of chances to use them. No, we ain't got some wimpy 2-4 month lawn growing season. Ours goes 8 or 9 months easy, and if you skip a week you need a machete to beat the jungle back enough to get your mower in. So my question is this. WHAT'S HAPPENING? I cannot keep either of my mowers going.

I am useless with small engines. Or actually, I am just pretty useless with my hands in general. I joke that my toolbox contains a yellow pages and a mastercard. But still, all of my life I have kept a mower gassed up and full of oil. And it has always paid me back by cranking when I yanked the starter cord. A beautiful, healthy, totally symbiotic relationship. But here lately, every other, or every third mowing takes place after I take it across the street for small engine maintenance. Seriously, it spends almost as much time stripped down and soaking in carberateur cleaner (yes, I know, but I couldn't figure out how to spell carberateur) as it does actually mowing. So, it's not that I am suddenly taking less care of them. In fact, it is not possible for me to take less care of them.

All I can figure is it is one of two things, or possibly a combo of both. It is either that mower engines are now manufactured with exceedingly cheap ass components nowadays, or the ethenol in the gas is playing hell with the gas getting function. Yep.

Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere, out

Ramblin' Ed